1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-way connector requiring less inserting force in which a female connector housing accommodating a multitude of terminals and a male connector housing also accommodating a multitude of terminals are able to be coupled together for connection with a small magnitude of force.
2. Statement of the Prior Art
In keeping with the increase of the number of electric components and sophistication of electric circuits used in automotive vehicles, more and more multi-way connectors are used for connection of electric circuits of automotive vehicles. When connecting together multi-way connectors each accommodating a multitude of groups of terminals, connection resistance between the contact portions of the groups of terminals grows, and therefore a great magnitude of inserting force is required to connect together such multi-way connectors.
With a view to solving this problem, the official gazette of Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 99788/1988 discloses a connector requiring less inserting force as a means for reducing inserting force required to couple together multi-way connectors of the above type.
Specifically speaking, in this connector requiring less inserting force, a rotatable lever provided with a pinion on the outer circumference of the supporting portion thereof is mounted on one of female and male connector housings that are to be coupled together, while a rack designed to be brought into mesh with the pinion is provided on the other. In this construction, when the rotatable lever is rotated in the direction different from one in which the connector housing is coupled to the other, coupling force is amplified, and this enables the female and male connector housings to be coupled together with a small magnitude of force.
In this known multi-way connector requiring less inserting force, inserting force is amplified by the rotatable lever serving as a lever body, and an inserting operation with less force is actually realized to a certain extent. However, the rotational direction of the rotatable lever is different from the direction in which the connector housing is coupled to the other, and moreover a coupling operation of a pair of connector housings is performed in such a manner that the pair of connector housings are held in a temporary fitted state, and that the rotatable lever is then rotated to operate in the direction different from the coupling direction to thereby enable the pair of connector housings to be coupled together. This often requires the operator to shift his/her hand from one position to another, leading to a drawback that the operating efficiency in coupling two connector housings is reduced to a great extent.
In addition, a certain amount of space is required around the connector so that the rotatable lever can be rotated, and therefore this leads to another drawback that the connector requiring such space therearound is not suitable for use in automotive vehicles in which only a limited space is allowed around an electric wiring connector.